The psychological effects of homelessness are quite complex and diverse, due to the level of vulnerability, fear and social exclusion that you have been exposed to.

Homelessness affects an individual’s functioning, it is extremely detrimental to your mental health, sense of worth, ability to form and maintain healthy relationships, and ability to deal effectively with stress.

The effects of homelessness can also inhibit your ability to utilise helpful coping strategies that would otherwise help you to break the cycle of homelessness, by developing resilience and coping skills for independent living.

Therefore, having adequate holistic support ensures that you develop the skills to address individual vulnerabilities that are increasing the risk of losing your housing, as well as to address the mental health issues that were caused or exacerbated by homelessness.

This workshop aims to promote mental wellbeing in order to help increase your readiness to be housed and to remain housed by facilitating an educational and therapeutic space where you can learn life skills and develop coping mechanisms in order to achieve a positive settlement into your new or current place.

What can be achieved:

• Identifying personal issues that are negatively impacting the ability to maintain secure housing
• Getting support from other participants who are experiencing similar situations
• Developing healthy coping mechanisms to deal with those personal issues that are impacting on the ability to maintain secure housing
• Increasing knowledge about relevant services that can provide support to establish successful tenancies
• Learning relaxation techniques in order to reduce stress and anxiety
• Developing life skills to deal with challenging situations in a healthy manner.

Who can benefit from this support group:

• People whose mental health has been affected by being homeless or who are at risk of homelessness